GF Piping Systems to outlay EUR 21 mln in distribution, production capacity

14-Oct-08

Swiss headquartered GF Piping Systems will make an investment of CHF (Swiss francs) 21 mln (EUR 13 mln) at its Schaffhausen, Switzerland location in order to expand distribution and production. CHF 14 mln of this amount will be invested in expanding the current distribution centre and improving its efficiency, while CHF 7 mln will be spent to expand manufacturing capacity at the Schaffhausen plant. The investments will be made to satisfy the surge in demand, to eliminate delivery bottlenecks and to substantially improve operating processes. The Schaffhausen distribution centre, in operation since the late 1980s, will be brought up to the current more demanding market standards with new additional infrastructures. The construction is expected to begin by July 2009 and the expanded logistics centre is planned to come on stream in spring 2010. Also, the production capacity at the Schaffhausen plant is being increased in order to meet the steep rise in demand with a significant part of the new investments is related to the realization of full automatic production cells for the manufacturing of plastic fittings and accessories, mainly used in the utility and industrial piping applications. It is planned to have the new production units in full operation by June 2009.